


Change Will Come

by HighlyOpinionatedNerd



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: (tried to leave it ambiguous), Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, Graduation, Maka struggles with abandonment issues, The Future is Scary and neither of them knows how to deal with it, and Soul struggles with having feelings at all, but not by much, established relationship (???), hope you enjoy!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-10 23:58:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12310602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighlyOpinionatedNerd/pseuds/HighlyOpinionatedNerd
Summary: Graduation is fast approaching, and Maka knows what she wants. But it turns out that Soul has other ideas. The two of them are forced to take an uncomfortably close look at what it is they really want, and make some tough decisions about their futures.





	Change Will Come

There is nothing like the feel of living steel beneath your fingers. Absolutely nothing in the world.

Maka has had that thought countless times before, and she would bet her life that she would think it countless more times in the future. Somehow it never fails to amaze her what it feels like to fight with Soul.

Actually, she had always thought of it more as dancing than fighting. Leaping and running, her pulse racing, the blade of her scythe whirling all around her. Soul responded to her slightest touch, lightly twirling and springing through her hands. Together they moved across the floor in a beautifully choreographed and deadly dance.

Maka ran and pushed off the ground hard, jumping up as high as she could. With a shout, she brought the scythe swinging down in a wicked arc; the perfect finishing move.

She landed on her feet and slid a little, working to keep her balance. When she straightened up she was breathing hard, but smiling.

There was a familiar sensation in her hand, prompting her to open her fingers. The scythe sprang away from her, and then Soul was standing in front of her, also a little short of breath.

“That last set was pretty good,” he said.

“Yeah, it was. Especially the last few moves, I’m happy with the way those are coming along.” She absently wiped a few sweaty strands of hair away from her face. “But I still think it could be better.”

“Sure, but not tonight, ok? We’ve been at this for long enough. Besides, I told Black Star I’d study for finals with him tonight.”

“Are you actually going to get a lot of studying done with him around?”

“Probably not, but Tsubaki will be there, so I’m hoping she’ll be able to help me with a few things.”

Maka chuckled. “Ok. Good luck with your studies. I think I’m going to stay here for just a little longer.”

“Have fun with that,” Soul said, turning and walking towards the gym’s door. “Don’t overwork yourself.”

“Stop nagging, I’ll be fine,” she called after him. He merely raised a hand in acknowledgement and kept walking.

Maka took a deep breath and put up her fists, preparing to run through some solo martial arts exercises. Her experiences had long since taught her that she also needed to know how to fight without a partner, and she had reached a fairly capable level by now.

But it wasn’t much fun dancing alone.

 

Summer was in the air in Death City.

Every day was longer and hotter than the day before. Every day there was less field work for the students of DWMA, and more homework as their final exams approached.

Soul’s eighteenth birthday had already come and gone, and Maka’s was fast approaching. The fact that she would soon be an adult, with adult responsibilities and adult freedoms, felt strange to contemplate. Scary and liberating and unrealistic and justified, all at once.

Her father insisted she was ready. But she wasn’t sure. He said he was proud of her. She wasn’t sure if he was right to be. But it was nice to hear, all the same.

Summer was in the air, and it was bringing change with it.

 

“Professor?” Maka stuck her head around the door into Stein’s office. “You wanted to see us?”

“Oh, yeah,” Stein said, looking up from whatever he was working on. “Yes, please come in, you two.”

Maka opened the door the rest of the way and stepped inside, Soul following her with his hands in his pockets and an I-hope-we’re-not-in-trouble look on his face.

“Sit down,” Stein said, gesturing to the chairs set out in front of his desk. “I’ll just be a second.”

They did so, and waited as Stein quickly scrawled some notes on the papers in front of him. Soul glanced at Maka and raised an eyebrow questioningly, to which she just shrugged.

“Right then,” Stein said, setting his work aside. “You two are seniors now, about to graduate from the academy. So I’ve called you here today to discuss your plans for after you finish with school.”

Maka blinked in surprise. She didn’t know what she had expected, but it had not been that. She hadn’t given the idea too much thought, but she supposed it made sense for their teachers to want to know.

“Basically, you have two options,” Stein continued. “You can keep doing the same kind of work, here or at one of the other branches, or you can request inactive status, in which case you won’t be doing any missions for Shinigami-sama. You have to pick one of those options before we can talk about anything else. Maka? Thoughts?”

She paused for a moment, considering her answer. “I think I’d like to remain in Death City, at least for a little while longer,” she said. “But eventually I’d really like to travel. It’d be nice to spend some time working somewhere in Europe, I think.”

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” Stein said, digging around on his desk until he found some other piece of paper and making a note. “Do you agree to that, Soul?”

“Uh…” Soul grimaced uncomfortably. “I actually need to request inactive status, Professor.”

“Really? You don’t wish to be a weapon anymore?”

Soul shrugged. “My family wants me to go back home and continue with my music studies. Now that I can control my weapon abilities, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“No, you should be fine,” Stein muttered, quickly writing some more notes on his paper.

Maka stared at Soul. She had never heard him speak of this before. And she could hardly believe she was hearing it now.

“Soul, you’ll need to fill out a request form and turn it into the admin office by next Friday,” Stein said. “Maka, your name will go on a list, and if a weapon you’d be compatible with becomes available, you can partner with them and continue to work in the field. If not, you still have options here. Teaching positions and the like. But we’ll talk more about that later.”

“Yes sir,” Maka said quietly. Soul just nodded mutely. 

“Alright then, you’re free to go. If you see Kid and the Thompson sisters, please remind them that they are obligated to attend one of these meetings too, no excuses.”

They stood and left the office, closing the door on Stein behind them. Maka was still in shock, but she could feel it beginning to wear off and make room for anger and fear and a deep sense of betrayal to set in.

“Maka,” Soul said, reaching out a hand, “I couldn’t-”

“Stop,” she snapped, twisting out of his reach. “Just stop. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this.”

“If you’d just let me explain -”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Without another word, she spun on her heel and stormed away, before her face could give away all the conflicting emotions suddenly swirling around inside her head.

 

“Yo, Soul!” Black Star called out as Soul entered the cafe, waving him over to the table by the window where they usually sat.

“Hey,” Soul said, sliding into the booth, next to Black Star and across from Kid. They had gone ahead and ordered for him; the sandwich on the plate in front of him was still warm.

“So?” Black Star asked. “What did Stein want?”

Soul shrugged irritably. “To ask about our plans after graduation. Apparently we have to fill out all this paperwork about it. Kid, he told me to tell you to go see him too.”

“Ridiculous,” Kid scoffed. “My father already knows what I’ll be doing after graduation. Why should I have to fill out paperwork about it?”

“I’m just passing on the message, man.”

“While it has been an interesting experience attending DWMA as a student, I don’t think I can say I’ll be sad to graduate.”

“Same,” said Black Star, who was busy picking crumbs off what was probably his second or third plate of food. “I’m ready to start working full time! Tsubaki will be a Death Scythe in no time, just you wait!”

“You two will be remaining in Death City, Black Star?”

“Yeah. I thought Tsubaki might like to go back to Japan, but she said she’d rather stay here, so we can work directly under Shinigami-sama.” Black Star grinned happily.

Soul and Kid shared a look. Soul was pretty sure that Tsubaki had only suggested that they stay so that there would be plenty of people to keep an eye on Black Star and keep him out of trouble, and from the look on Kid’s face, he was thinking the same. But neither of them bothered to say so out loud.

“What about you, Soul?” Kid asked. “Will you and Maka also be remaining here with us?”

Soul shook his head. “No. I...I’m going back home.” He thought about making up some kind of excuse, but now that he had told Stein, he doubted it would be long before they found out the truth anyway.

“What!” Black Star stared at Soul, mouth agape. “You- wait, you mean you’re not going to be a weapon anymore?”

“I can’t. My family doesn’t want me to keep doing this kind of thing.”

“Who cares?!”

“I do! They might not be the best, but they’re still my family.”

Kid crossed his arms, looking thoughtful. “Soul...does this mean you’re splitting up with Maka?”

“...Yeah.”

“And does she know about this?”

Soul nodded, eyes downcast. The memory of the shock and hurt on her face when she’d found out was still uncomfortably fresh in his mind.

“She’s ok with this?” Black Star demanded. “She’s down to just let you waltz back off to wherever you came from just like that?”

“I don’t know,” Soul muttered irritatedly. “She’s not speaking to me at the moment.”

Kid put a hand over his eyes. “You didn’t tell her. You didn’t talk this over with her beforehand.”

“How could I have? I only just got the last word from home like a month ago-”

“You should have talked to her about this a month ago, then!”

“- and there hasn’t been a good time to bring it up since then. She’s been working really hard, training all the time and staying up late studying. How am I supposed to just _tell_ her something like that? I mean, you guys know what she’s like when she’s mad.”

For a moment there was silence at the table. Soul pushed his plate away from him- he’d lost his appetite.

“Is this what you really want?” Black Star asked. “To go back to playing piano all day, like this never happened?”

“It’s a good opportunity. Anyone would be happy to have a chance like this.”

“You don’t sound happy.”

“I know. Fuck it all, I know.”

 

“So this is where you’ve been hiding out.”

Maka glanced up from the open book on the table in front of her; Tsubaki and Crona were approaching, carefully winding their way through the maze of haphazardly placed library chairs.

“Oh, man,” Maka groaned. “It’s Monday, isn’t it. I’m sorry guys, I just forgot…”

“It’s ok,” Tsubaki said. “But we were afraid you’d get hungry, so we brought you some food.”

“You shouldn’t skip lunch, Maka,” Crona added. “It’s not good for you.”

“Thanks, you two. I really appreciate it. It’s been...it hasn’t been the best day.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Tsubaki said, sitting down in a nearby chair. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe later. I just need some time to come to terms with it right now.”

“Um, that sounds serious,” Crona said, looking concerned. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it…?”

Maka sighed, setting aside her book. “It’s fine, Crona. It’s just something with Soul, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Crona didn’t look very reassured by that.

Tsubaki reached out and put a hand on Maka’s shoulder. “Maka, you shouldn’t feel like you have to keep quiet. You always encourage me to speak up when I have problems with Black Star, after all. And look at Crona, they wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t helped them with Medusa.”

“Yeah, you should let us pay you back a little.”

Maka shook her head. She wondered what she had ever done to deserve friends like Tsubaki and Crona.

“I don’t think talking is going to help. I just...I need to think about my future right now. I need to make sure I have a plan. But when I do, I’ll talk to you, I promise.”

Tsubaki gave Maka’s shoulder a squeeze. “Alright. Just don’t forget, we’re here for you.”

“I won’t. Thank you.”

“It’s no trouble, Maka.”

“That’s what friends are for, after all.”

 

Soul lingered at the academy long after classes for the day were over, finding every excuse he could not to go home. He didn’t know if he was ready to face another encounter with Maka.

But eventually, he ran out of things to stall himself with. So he headed back, mentally rehearsing what he wanted to say to her. Amazing how, even when the arguments took place entirely in his head, he still lost most of them.

When he opened the door to their apartment and walked in, she didn’t even flinch. She was on the couch, shuffling through a stack of papers, and seemed intent on ignoring him.

Soul took a deep breath. “Hey, uh, can we-”

“So when are you leaving?” she asked flatly, without looking at him.

He blinked. “I don’t-”

“Are you even going to wait until after our graduation ceremony, or are you that desperate to get away from here?”

“What? No, that’s…Do you really think that’s how I feel? That I can’t wait to leave?”

She looked at him then, her eyes narrowed and her teeth bared. “Oh, _isn’t it?_ ”

Maka stood up and took a step towards him. Soul involuntarily took a step back, alarm bells going off in his head. Maka could be very scary when she was angry.

“You keep quiet about this for who knows how long, and then I have to find out about it like this? You’ll tell Stein, but not me? Well, excuse me for thinking that this was because of me!”

“Maka, if I could stay, I would. But, this is my family we’re talking about. You know what they’re like. They’re powerful, in their own ways. And if I disobey them, they’d cut me off, and I’d have nothing.”

“You’d have had me,” she hissed, balling her fists. “We’d have been together, just like we always have been.”

“You know that’s not what I-”

“I was blind,” she cut him off. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it. But I get it now. Of course I would never be enough for someone like you. It’s so obvious. But you know what, fine, I don’t care. Run off back to your precious family and live the high life, since that’s what you want so bad!”

“You don’t know what I want!” Soul shouted. He hadn’t meant to raise his voice with her, but he was angry now too. “Stop acting like I chose this because I wanted it! I told you, I didn’t have a choice!”

“You could have chosen to tell me! This affects my whole life, Soul!”

Maka turned her back on him, but not before he had a chance to glimpse the tears forming in her eyes.

“My whole life,” she repeated, and she sounded small, and afraid. “It might not matter that much to you, but it changes everything for me.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her cry. Maybe he never had. “Maka, I didn’t-”

“Whatever. I shouldn’t have expected you to stay anyway. I should’ve known you’d leave me too.”

Soul reached out a hand to grab her shoulder, but he hesitated. The two of them rarely touched when he was in his human form. It was like an unspoken rule between them, an invisible barrier that hardly ever came down. Now, if ever, seemed like the time to break through that barrier, but still he hesitated. And in his moment of hesitation she walked away. He heard her bedroom door slam behind her a moment later.

Soul groaned and flopped down heavily on the couch. Without meaning to, he had somehow made everything worse. He didn’t know how he could fix things between them now.

He reached over and picked up one of the papers she had been studying earlier. He was surprised to find that it was a handwritten letter. The date at the top of the page placed it as six years old, and it was signed by Maka’s mother.

He put the letter down and picked up another paper from the stack. That one was a letter too, seven years old. They were all letters.

Soul put his hands over his face. He was an idiot. He had _known_ she had issues with people she cared about abandoning her, that she was paranoid about being left alone, but he hadn’t thought about that when considering what he was going to do after graduating. He had only thought about himself, and it was no wonder she was so upset, he was such a fucking, stupid idiot.

But that didn’t change what he had said to her. He couldn’t defy his family. And he couldn’t make this up to her, not if she thought he was abandoning her like this. What if he and Maka were never able to fix the relationship between them?

Suddenly he felt very alone.

 

“Did you hear about Maka and Soul?” Black Star asked. “Seems like they’re splitting up.”

Tsubaki nodded. “Maka said she didn’t want to talk about it, but...I assumed it was something like that. Hard to believe, isn’t it.”

“Yeah. Those two were really good together.”

“You mean, as weapon and meister, or _together_ together?”

“Hm? Is there really that much of a difference?”

“Nevermind.” Tsubaki sighed. “I don’t think those two have even attempted to put a label to what it is they have between them. Regardless, I’ll be sad to see Soul go.”

“I wonder if he’ll really go through with it.”

“Does he really have a choice?”

“There’s always a choice. He just needs to man up and figure out what matters to him, I guess.”

“I guess you’re right. I hope he figures it out soon. For both their sakes.”

 

“Oi, Maka,” Soul called, banging on her closed door. “Let me in. Please? I need to talk to you.”

There was no response. Soul paused to listen intently through the wood, then redoubled his efforts. He had spent the past few hours doing some of the most intense introspective soul-searching of his life, and he had vowed that this time, he would not rest until he had told her the truth.

“C’mon, Maka! We can’t leave it like this. I’m not going to leave until you talk to me properly!”

Without warning, the door swung inwards, startling Soul.

“What do you want,” Maka said. Her eyes were red, and her hair was a mess. She looked angry, but Soul was determined not to be deterred.

“I just want to talk,” he said. “Let me be real with you. Please.”

“...Alright. Fine. Let’s be real then; what you did was wrong, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgi-”

“I’m not going to do it,” he interrupted.

She blinked in surprise. “Not... going to do what, exactly?”

“I’m not going back home,” he said. “I can’t. Things are different now, and I don’t think I can go back to the way it was.”

She stared at him wordlessly for a moment. Then she sighed and turned to move back into her room, gesturing for him to follow.

Awkwardly, Soul stepped inside. He didn’t come in here very often. She always got mad if he ‘invaded her space.’ But tonight was different. She sat down on the edge of her bed, and patted the space beside her. “Sit,” she said. She sounded tired.

He did as he was instructed. Somehow, her room always smelled like apple cinnamon. It was pleasant, if a little distracting.

“What about all that stuff you said earlier?” she prompted him. “About your family. Why the sudden change of mind?”

“No, all that stuff is true,” he said. “They are powerful, and they probably will make my life miserable if I don’t do what they want. But I just don’t want to go back to them. Not anymore.”

“I thought you were supposed to be being real with me.” She leaned in, her eyes focused intently on his. “What is it you want, Soul Eater Evans?”

She was really close to him. And that was a really, really stupid thing to get flustered about, because they spent so much time together, and they were close like this all the time, but man was it hard to be sincere when she was so close and she was staring right at him.

“I want to fight,” he blurted out. “I want to keep doing this. I didn’t know, when I first started, what it would feel like, how _good_ it feels to use these powers, and I thought I’d be able to stop whenever I wanted but I can’t.”

Oh god, he’d gone and said it. Immediately, Soul felt his face go bright red with embarrassment. He couldn’t believe he was really saying this to her out loud...

“And I don’t want to just fight by myself,” he forced himself to continue, “or with somebody else. It has to be you. You’re my partner, you’re the one who knows me better than anyone. It has to be us, together.”

“You...mean you want to keep working with me?”

“Yes,” he said earnestly. It felt so good to hear her say those words. Like some weight he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying had been lifted from his shoulders. But he still had more to say. “Yes, I do. I want to keep working together, and living together like this, whatever, just….don’t leave me, please.”

Mortifyingly, Soul felt tears starting to well up at the corners of his eyes. Hastily he wiped them on his sleeve. The last thing on Earth that he wanted was to cry like a kid in front of her, but it was really, really hard to keep his cool right now...

“I know I screwed up, Maka, I know, and I’m sorry, but I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you. I’ll follow wherever you go, just say you won’t shut me out. I can’t go back to being on my own, Maka, p-please…”

Soul stopped talking. He didn’t trust his voice not to break. He was starting to panic. He put his hands over his face and tried to focus on breathing slowly and evenly. Breathing and not crying. “Goddamnit, I just, I can’t-”

“It’s ok,” she said quietly. “Soul, it’s ok, really. Take your time.”

It was a few moments and several deep breaths before he mustered up the courage to look her in the face again. He hated feeling so vulnerable. He had never intentionally shown this side of himself to anyone before, not even Maka. But this was important. If the was the price he had to pay to get through to her, then so be it.

“Sorry,” he muttered quietly, swiping at his face with his sleeve again. “Just...that’s the truth. I don’t think I know how to live without you by my side anymore. And I don’t want to. Please.”

Maka reached out and pulled him into a hug. Soul was surprised, but after a moment, the surprise passed, and he returned her embrace. The barrier between them was down. He squeezed her tightly. She was trembling a little.

“You should have said this to me a long time ago,” she said.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“When you didn’t tell me what was going on with you, I was worried, and then when I found out about your family, I...I thought-”

“I know what you thought,” he murmured, burying his face in her shoulder. “But I’m not going to be just some other guy that abandoned you. I’ll stay. If you want me.”

“Of course I want you.” She pulled back from him and smiled. It was a timid, wavering, tearful smile, but it was the most beautiful thing Soul had ever seen. “That’s what I always wanted. I’m so happy you want me, too.”

“Yeah,” he said, making an effort to smile back. “Yeah, me too.”

“We have to tell Stein, tomorrow. And we have to decide where we’re transferring to. And we should-”

“Ok, ok, but...tomorrow.” Soul was somehow suddenly extremely exhausted.

“Tomorrow,” she agreed. “It’s late; have you eaten?”

“No. Have you?”

“No. I don’t really feel like making anything...Do you want to go out?”

“What, now?”

“Sure, why not.”

Soul smiled. He was so, so relieved to see her acting like herself again. “Yeah, ok. Why not. Let’s go out, then.”

 

“...But an opening came up suddenly, so Professor Stein said we can leave within the week.”

“What, so soon?!” Spirit exclaimed, looking concerned.

“There’s an opening now, so it can’t be helped,” Maka told him. She wondered why she didn’t feel more concerned about this herself. It was a little sudden, after all. She hadn’t planned on leaving for a few more weeks. But even knowing that, all she felt was excitement.

“Greece, huh,” Spirit said musingly. “I hear that it’s nice there, but you’ll be doing dangerous work, you know that right? Maybe I should see if Shinigami-sama will let me go with you…”

“Papa, don’t worry. We’ll be fine. Soul and I know how to handle ourselves.”

Spirit smiled at her. “My little girl is all grown up,” he said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.

“Stop it Papa, you’re embarrassing me,” she said, but she smiled. She didn’t actually mind that much, not anymore.

“Will you really be ok, with that Evans kid? After all, he’s-”

“We’ll be fine. Definitely. This is what we chose, both of us. As long as we’re together, we’ll be fine.”

Spirit smiled and nodded. “Alright. If this is what you’ve chosen, then I’m ok with it. I love you, Maka.”

“I love you too, Papa.”

 

“Is that everything?”

“Yep, it should be.”

“You sure? Got your entire moving box full of apple cinnamon candles?”

“Stop making fun of my candles!”

Maka set the box she was carrying, the last of their things, in the trunk and walked back upstairs and joined Soul in the doorway of their apartment. “It looks so much bigger now,” she remarked.

“Mm. I think I might actually learn to miss this place.”

“Well, I’m sure we’ll visit Death City often. The others will still be here, after all. We could always come back.”

“And freak out whatever students move in after we leave? Yeah, pass.”

“Ok, I guess you’ve got a point there.”

They stood in silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. School was over, their plane tickets were in Maka’s pocket, and she didn’t think she was quite the same person that she had been a few weeks ago. The summer of change was in full swing, and it wasn’t done with them yet.

“Shall we get going, then?”

“Yeah, I guess we should.”

They closed the door and walked away. They went downstairs and walked outside together, like they had done a million times before.

But this time they were holding hands. This time, there was no barrier between them, and they were adults and they were ready to face the future head on, together.

This time, for the first time in her life, Maka felt truly free.

**Author's Note:**

> It's done! I've wanted to write something Soul Eater for a long time, and even though it took forever I'm glad I finally sat down and did it. I had fun... who knows, maybe I'll write something else for this fandom in the future. Thank you for reading!
> 
> (Unrelated to absolutely anything, the song Coffee's for Closers is really good. I always misheard that one line as "change will come OR change will come," which I thought was really deep. It's good stuff. It has a very Soul/Maka vibe to it, in my opinion at least.)


End file.
